Clever Girl Finance isn’t just about money. We are about freedom, choices, and confidence. We know how overwhelming finances can feel, especially when you’re juggling career, family, and personal goals. That’s why we’ve built one of the largest personal finance communities for women, with over 100,000 women learning, growing, and winning with their money together.When you subscribe, you’re not just signing up for financial tips, you’re joining a movement. You’ll get access to relatable, judgment-free advice designed to help you ditch debt, save consistently, and invest with confidence. We break down money topics in a way that’s simple, practical, and actually fun. Whether you want to build your first emergency fund, pay off thousands in debt, or finally start building wealth for the long term, we’ve got the tools and support you need. With our resources, tools, and strategies, you’ll know you’re not alone on this journey. Subscribe today—because your future self deserves the financial freedom you’re dreaming of!
There’s something happening with money that I think we need to pay attention to.
We live in a world where almost everything is now designed to give us an immediate result. We can order something and have it delivered the same day, scroll through hundreds of videos in a few minutes, and ask AI a financial question and get an answer in seconds.
Then there’s investing, where we tell people to consistently put their money away and wait 20, 30, or even 40 years.
You can probably see the problem, right?
A new 2026 survey from Betterment caught my attention because it shows just how much the lines between financial information, investing, entertainment, and even gambling are starting to blur for among some younger investors.
Among the Gen Z investors surveyed, 60% said they use social media for financial news, compared with 45% in 2024. Nearly half said AI had influenced a financial decision, while 52% said they had redirected money originally intended for investing toward sports betting in the past year. Even more concerning to me, 26% said they consider sports betting part of their long-term financial strategy!
(Source note: Betterment's 2026 Retail Investor Survey included 1,000 U.S. retail investors ages 18–65 who held investments outside a 401(k). The Gen Z findings above reflect Gen Z investors within that survey, not all Gen Z adults.)
Social media can educate you, but it can also entertain you
I love that financial education has become more accessible. When I started Clever Girl Finance, one of my biggest goals was to make money conversations easier to understand and available to women who weren't necessarily going to sit down with a financial advisor.
Social media has helped make that possible on an enormous scale. That said, access to more financial information doesn't automatically mean access to better financial information.
Someone explaining an investing concept in a 60-second video may be educating you. Someone showing you how much money they supposedly made from a particular investment may be entertaining you. Someone recommending a product may be getting paid to promote it. And sometimes those things are happening all at the same time.
Before you make a financial decision based on something you see online, ask yourself:
Who is giving me this information?
What are their qualifications?
What do they gain if I follow their recommendation?
What risks aren't being discussed?
And can I verify this information somewhere else?
AI is a tool, not your financial decision-maker
We talk about this often here at Clever Girl Finance because we think AI can be incredibly useful for financial education. You can use it to explain terminology, help you understand different financial concepts, brainstorm questions to ask a professional, or organize information.
But there's a big difference between using AI to help you understand your options and allowing it to decide what you should do with your money.
AI doesn't fully understand your life, your emotions, your family responsibilities, your tolerance for risk, or every detail of your financial situation. It can also give you information that is incomplete, outdated, or simply wrong.
So use the technology but verify what you're learning and keep yourself in the driver's seat.
The bigger issue may be financial impatience
This is the part of the conversation I find most interesting.
Bank of America recently reported that Gen Z has the lowest savings-to-spending ratio of the generations it analyzed, while spending on things like travel, beauty, jewelry, coffee, and other immediate experiences and rewards has remained resilient.
I don't think the takeaway should be that young people need to stop buying coffee or enjoying their lives. We've been having that conversation for years, and it misses the bigger issue.
I think we need to ask why slow, consistent wealth building can feel increasingly unattractive when almost everything around us promises a faster result.
Investing $100 this month isn't particularly exciting. You probably aren't going to wake up next week financially independent because of it. Building real wealth can be repetitive, boring, and incredibly slow, especially in the beginning when your balances are still small, but that doesn't mean it isn't working.
The boring $100 you invest every month has something the quick win doesn't have: the opportunity to compound and grow over decades.
So how do you protect your long-term goals?
If you enjoy social media shopping or spending money on entertainment, that is a personal choice. But I would encourage you to draw a very clear line between money you're willing to spend for entertainment and money you've committed to building your future.
A few things can help:
Automate your investing first. Move money toward your long-term goals before you have the opportunity to redirect it elsewhere.
Create a separate entertainment budget. If travel, shopping, or other discretionary spending is something you enjoy, decide what you can afford after your financial priorities are covered.
Verify financial information before acting on it. Don't make a major money decision because one creator, one viral video, or one AI response told you to.
Ask what you're actually buying. Is this money going toward building your future, taking a calculated risk, or simply entertaining you? Be clear with yourself about which one it is.
Remember what the money is for. Your retirement account may not give you an adrenaline rush today, but its job isn't to entertain you. Its job is to help fund your future.
I don’t think social media is inherently bad, and the answer certainly isn’t to shame people for wanting to enjoy their lives but I do think we have to acknowledge that building wealth now competes for our attention and our dollars in ways it didn't before.
The same phone you use to check your investment account can show you a creator promising a shortcut to wealth, give you an AI-generated answer about what stock to buy, and show you something you suddenly feel like you need to buy all within five minutes.
That makes financial discernment an increasingly important wealth building skill.
So enjoy your life, use the technology available to you, and learn from the incredible amount of financial information we now have access to. Just don't confuse entertainment with financial education, or a quick win with a long-term wealth-building strategy.
Take control of your life and achieve your financial freedom. Join over 100,000 women in our community!
Clever Girl Finance isn’t just about money. We are about freedom, choices, and confidence. We know how overwhelming finances can feel, especially when you’re juggling career, family, and personal goals. That’s why we’ve built one of the largest personal finance communities for women, with over 100,000 women learning, growing, and winning with their money together.When you subscribe, you’re not just signing up for financial tips, you’re joining a movement. You’ll get access to relatable, judgment-free advice designed to help you ditch debt, save consistently, and invest with confidence. We break down money topics in a way that’s simple, practical, and actually fun. Whether you want to build your first emergency fund, pay off thousands in debt, or finally start building wealth for the long term, we’ve got the tools and support you need. With our resources, tools, and strategies, you’ll know you’re not alone on this journey. Subscribe today—because your future self deserves the financial freedom you’re dreaming of!
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Learn, plan, and grow! Check out our 30+ free courses, 40+ free worksheets, and our 1-on-1 coaching offerings! Did you get this email forwarded to you? Join thousands of women in the CGF community, follow us on Instagram, and watch on YouTube! View this and previous newsletters anytime: Online newsletters. Fuel the mission! ☕️ ❤️ Hello Reader, Today's question is from Camille, age 38 I’ve been saying yes to everything this summer; trips, dinners, activities with my kids, and things I didn’t...
